Overactive imagination

I keep having these nutty ideas and really wish I could take advantage of them (well, some of them) in addition to coming up with them.

- I was playing the Bach-Brahms Chaconne in D minor for the left hand alone when it occurred to me...wouldn't the violincello partitas be an excellent workout played on a piano, left hand alone? I doubt any modifications would be necessary.

- How about writing a cadenza for a piano concerto, but including a violin along with the piano? How about two violins, a viola and a 'cello? This idea comes to me from the 3rd movement cadenza of the Bartok 2nd concerto, which has a timpani accompaniment.

- I've got the idea for the opening measures of a piano concerto: the pianist 'starts' the orchestra in the same way one would start a car. The first couple of times, the orchestra enters briefly, then sputters to a halt. Then finally, it clatters to life and takes off with the pianist at the helm. I wrote an opening cadenza, but couldn't figure out a way to harness its energy in the orchestral answer.

- There must be a way to produce vibrato on a piano by manipulating the cords, but I'm stuck for a way to do it with the fingers without killing the sound. After all, a violinist has the advantage of constant control of tone. A pianist only controls a single attack per note, and after that it's all downhill. So perhaps there is a way to do it with a metal implement that would not extinguish the sound?

Buy yourself a clavichord. Or a fan over your piano

Watch out, Jeff, good buddy.

Sounds like you may have been infected by the composing bug.

And you know how that can eat into your practice time (not that that stops anyone).

Cheers,

The clavichord, unlike any other keyboard instrument, is capable of vibrato and pitch bending. The technique is called a 'bebung'.